Half a dozen most exciting usage of Raspberry Pi

Time lapse through Pi
Over the years, we have increasingly captured more footage of our lives and the world around us via a constellation of mobile devices and installed ones. The Pi is keen to to show off its capabilities, and joined in the fun to teach all other contenders how it’s done. We head back to ‘Instructables’ once again for this post, and it comes via a user named ‘rickadam’, which suggests that his name is actually Rick Adam (For the purpose of this article, we’ll call him Rick). Rick decided to go with Raspbian as his software of choice, and mounted his Pi to the base of his DSLR, and onto a rail which was controlled by a pulley. Still with me? Good. Rick, through his Android phone was able to communicate with Pi via the app ‘Connectbot’ and sent commands over wifi. He ran two circuits; one to control the camera and another for the motor, and was able to erect his time lapse setup without much fuss. If you’re interested in such a rig, hop over to Rick’s post for more details and know how.

Pi Coffee maker
Let’s be honest here, most of us enjoy a good coffee in the morning, and we would enjoy it even more if someone else made it for us. Now that we have come to terms with this fact, I present to you, the coffee maker that is powered by Pi. The following are the words Sascher Wolter, the guy who posted the video. Said Sascher, “Together with the great guys from Oracle we from Developer Garden hacked a Nespresso coffee machine, connected it to a Raspberry Pi PC (with Java running) and controlled the coffee making via Phone (thanks to the Telekom Tropo API and a little bit of PHP). Please note, the video is just a rough cut to illustrate our proof of concept.” Hacking a coffee maker may be beyond our capabilities, but it’s awesome to see what some of the professional guys use this device to accomplish. Hit the link to watch the demo video and gain some more insight. I wonder what they’ll come up with next? Pi powered car anyone?

Pi Bitcoin Miner
Bitcoin blew up in 2013 and hit highs of over $1200 per coin at one point. Everyone jumped on the mining bandwagon, and many sought cost saving ways to mine. Mr. Collin Cunningham, an avid miner, set up a low powered Pi rig that was connected to four USB ASIC Miners. Again powered by Raspbian, the Pi was connected to an Adafruit 16×2 LCD display and the USB hub which enabled it to accomodate the miners. At a rate of approximately 333 MH/s, four of these miners would generate 1.3 GH/s. That’s a decent turn over for a home based miner, and it consumes a lot less power while doing more work than the average GPU in your desktop. Pi solves a lot of problems, but when it makes you money, it makes even more sense. Click the link for an in depth view of how you too can have this up and running without much hassle.

Wrap Up
A simple Google or YouTube search will reveal thousands of implementations of Pi. Robots, automated machines and desktop computers; they’ve all been made and there are many more that we have not yet discovered. Feel free to do your own research and share the marvels that have been created. The success of Pi highlights the power of Open Source Software and how it can transform our lives with a little know how. Tell us readers; do you have Pi and how exactly do you use yours? Fill us in and maybe you’ll be included in our next edition.

About Myril Kennedy

I am a fan of technology and Android in particular. It has helped to turn the mobile industry on its head, and its open source nature has opened many doors that were previously closed. I am also a self confessed Google fanboy, so it may be reflected in my views from time to time.
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